


Better Left Dead

by calrissian18



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Draco/OMC - Freeform, Infidelity, Jealousy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-19 20:51:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calrissian18/pseuds/calrissian18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A love story and a half.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Left Dead

**Author's Note:**

> There seems to be a formula for fictions that involve Harry or Draco cheating in Harry/Draco stories. If it's Draco, well, he's a dirty Death Eater who deserves to be alone so kicking him to the curb and spitting on him on your way past is perfectly acceptable. If it's Harry, ooo *momentarily blinded by Harry Potter handsomeness*, all he need do is blow in with a half-assed apology and Draco gladly lets him back into his life - because of course he's been simply waiting (read: pining) for it.
> 
> Well, I am partial to Draco, not Harry. So I wrote that story. It's not petty, it's not mean, it's not childish, it's not biased, it's not unrealistic. It's a love story and a half.
> 
> Vietnamese translation by [nobunakira](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nobunakira): [here](https://hdfcvn.wordpress.com/2015/02/06/better-left-dead/).

 

The press of Harry's suit was fine and stiff but in a way that made him want to stand up straighter and breathe deeper.  He smiled with bright eyes into warm brown ones as the cool band slid into place.  The edge of his teeth caught his bottom lip as his own attempt snagged and Ginny laughed and held onto his hand until it stopped shaking.  She was so alive and he was painfully exhilarated as he finally leaned in to claim her as his.  
  
The smiles that flashed his way were all a bit blinding but none of them rivaled the silver-blond glow that was shining like a beacon near the latticed wall.  Harry walked over to him, slowed by much hand-shaking and heartfelt congratulations.  He was near the awning but not quite under it as he sipped a glass of white wine.  Harry was partial to red himself.  
  
Harry sidled up to him as close as he dared and received a benign smile in response.  
  
"I didn't think you'd come."  And it was such an obvious thing to say that it almost saddened him.  He wondered if maybe that was all that was left between them.  
  
"Then why the invitation, Harry?" Malfoy quipped, undercutting him, though it didn't seem to have any meanness to it.  
  
Harry licked his lips uneasily.  He didn't have an answer and Malfoy knew it too.  
  
Malfoy's eyes flashed.  "Besides, I wouldn't miss this," he declared unflinchingly.  "The day of your demise."  
  
Harry's jaw clenched.  "It's a wedding not a funeral, Malfoy."  He began to wonder why it had seemed so important that he acknowledge Malfoy's presence.  He snatched a glass of red off the first floating tray to meander near enough.  
  
"If you say so."  Malfoy's tone was agreeable and Harry felt his shoulders ease a bit.  The blond cast his gaze about with interest as though trying to capture it all before it disappeared.  Harry wondered if that was because Malfoy wasn't ever likely to have a wedding himself.  "I know I saw the boy I knew die today," he piped up offhandedly, just as Harry was thinking that maybe it wasn't such a mistake that he was here, "he drowned in that confident, ringing 'I do'."  
  
Harry could feel himself growing defensive and it wasn't long before anger would be chomping at its heels.  "You don't know what you're talking about," he informed him in a tone of forced calm.  
  
"Could be," Malfoy relented again without a fight.  It was unsettling.  He grinned into his glass.  "I wasn't right very often when it came to you, was I?"  
  
Harry looked away uncomfortably, his mouth tightening and an ill-at-ease feeling making his stomach squirm.  "I'm still alive and kicking, least ways," he said after it had been silent long enough that the subject change didn't seem as inopportune.  
  
"Yes," Malfoy admitted, squinting slightly as he looked up at Harry.  The sun was only getting brighter as if to protest its dying, "but you're not a man I recognize anymore.  Certainly not the boy I loved."  
  
He threw it out so easily, so naturally, that for a moment Harry didn't react.  However, his brain did eventually catch up.  He grabbed Malfoy by the arm in a way he knew must be painful and pulled him further away from the overhang.  When he was sure they were out of earshot, he hissed through clenched teeth, his eyes shifting about nervously, "We're not alone or have you forgotten?"  
  
"He had plans that didn't include this, remember?" Malfoy said and it took Harry a moment to remember what the hell he was talking about.  "He wanted to open his own broom shop where 'evil' would just be the name of his nastiest invention."  He looked pointedly over at the table of Harry's coworkers, some of them still in their crimson-colored Auror robes.  "He wanted to see the world before he settled into it."  Malfoy's eyes were downcast as he tacked on, "He was brave enough to love a boy no one would approve of."  
  
Malfoy's face was so damn earnest that Harry couldn't look at it.  He folded his arms over his chest, cursing himself for leaving his glass on the table.  "I never said I loved you, Malfoy."  It was weak and they both knew it.  
  
He expected Malfoy to be cocky and sneer about it as he refuted the lame claim but he only smiled and said simply into his glass, "No, you didn't."  He took a dainty sip and swirled the alcohol in its base as he looked around at all the chaos that was Harry's wedding.  
  
"I grew up," Harry growled, drawing his attention back purposefully.  "There were expectations and that was... that was all just nonsense."  
  
Malfoy glanced back at him with pity and Harry felt his fists clench.  "No, Harry, they were dreams," he said with a frown.  "They were what you wanted for yourself before you allowed everyone else to taint it."  
  
Harry was beginning to lose the tenuous grasp he had on the reins of his temper.  "Why did you come?" he demanded.  
  
Malfoy shrugged and trailed a long finger around the rim of his glass.  "I wanted to see," he decided on finally.  
  
Harry refrained from stamping his foot.  Barely.  "See what?"  
  
Malfoy stared at him unblinkingly and Harry couldn't help his flinch as those wide eyes watched him.  When he spoke, his voice was soft and devoid of any sort of blame, "To see that you were well and truly gone so I could finally let you go.  You're a hero the whole world can be proud of, I hope that brings you all the happiness you deserve, Harry."  He sounded sincere and Harry was so surprised by it that he didn't react when Malfoy patted the lapel of his jacket fondly.  "Say congratulations to the bride for me, eh?" he said with a smile.  "She got her man and all it cost was the death of mine."  


♕

  
"It has to be now, does it?" he said as he tangled with his leathers.  He was meant to go out for a pick-up game with Ron and George that week-end but months of disuse had led to his Quidditch gear getting a bit uppity.  
  
"Of course it does," Ginny told him as she stood with her hands on her hips and a frown on her face.  "The season's starting in only a few weeks or so.  It's only natural that the practice for it would kick up a notch."  
  
"You were practicing here just fine," Harry grunted out as he tried to wrench the strings apart.  
  
"Harry," Ginny said softly and he realized she was kneeling in front of him.  She placed soft, small hands over his tense one's and whispered, "You said you were happy for me."  
  
Harry frowned thoughtfully.  "That hasn't changed.  I just thought there would be a bit more time."  
  
Her face relaxed and she smiled.  "So did I."  She yanked on the knot and the leather strings came apart without resistance.  Her eyes filled with laughter as Harry sputtered and she pulled him down on top of her.  


♕

  
"The shop seems just as busy as ever," Harry observed as he waded through the waist-high mob.  He scratched his head, certain that he had never been that _tiny_.  
  
Ron grinned and grabbed him by the forearm to help him out of the masses and into the back.  "It is, mate.  It is."  
  
"How's George?" Harry asked, turning the conversation more serious than a joke shop deserved.  
  
Ron rubbed the back of his neck.  "He's... he's not been down at all this week."  His eyes shifted up to the ceiling for a moment where George's room resided.  He hitched a grin back onto his face.  "Verity's been picking up an enormous amount of the slack though, so much so that she's got a nice raise coming to her."  
  
Harry grinned back.  "Lucky girl."  
  
"And you?" Ron asked, shoveling half the sandwich Harry had brought for him into his mouth.  "Heaven, mate," he told him through the half-masticated blob, indicating his mouth.  "Bit lonely in the place without Gin about?"  
  
Harry took a firm bite of his own club, as if to show Ron how a human being ate, and shrugged, smiling.  "The house makes a lot more creepy noises than I ever realized that's for sure."  
  
Ron snorted.  "You've ghosts!"  
  
"More like creaky pipes and an active imagination," Harry laughed.  


♕

  
Harry soon figured out that the more time he spent by himself, the more he found himself thinking about things that were best not thought of.  Too many mornings he woke up and wished Ginny were there to put such ideas out of his head.  He was happy that she had found something she loved but a tiny, selfish part of him wished she had loved him more.  
  
The sick bit was that the only reason he wanted her there was to stop him from thinking of someone else.  
  
He pulled his slick hand out of his sticky pajama bottoms and stared at it in disgust.  This was the third time since he'd started seeing Ginny that he had wanked to the thought of another person and it still made him feel ill.  He stumbled into the shower, berating himself in grumbles, and wondered for what felt like the hundredth time what the fuck Malfoy had meant by what he'd said at the wedding.  
  
He closed his eyes with an exasperated sigh as he felt his opportunistic cock give a twitch.  He turned the water colder and wished there was something that could scrub the grey eyes and blond hair from his brain.  


♕

  
Harry only managed to wait two days after finding out that Malfoy was working part-time at Obscurus Books before he accosted him outside the entrance as he was closing up.  He felt like he'd been on edge for weeks and he found himself already mid-argument before they'd even begun.  He pressed Malfoy back against the door with a hand on his shoulder and ran the other through his hair distractedly.  "I'm still the same person," he defended hotly.  "Yeah, some things changed," he admitted feebly, "but... that's just a part of growing up, isn't it.  You reevaluate and sometimes, yeah, you settle but you _have_ to because dreams, dreams aren't realistic."  
  
"That's not why things changed for you, Harry," Malfoy said softly and Harry looked up at him.  "You still want all those things and you had the means for them once upon time, you just got scared."  
  
Harry blustered in offense. "I wasn't afraid."  
  
Malfoy shook his head tiredly.  "Go home to your wife."  He pushed Harry's restraining hand away.  "I won't be your jumping off point anymore.  I'm not waiting for you or didn't you understand what I was trying to say," and Harry wasn't about to admit that he didn't but Malfoy kept on without it, "I don't know you anymore, Harry.  You're not a man I recognize and, more than that, you're not someone I _want_ to know."  
  
Harry watched with something like butterflies as Malfoy walked away without a backward glance.  


♕

  
Harry was only half-surprised when he saw Malfoy in the Leaky.  He'd felt primed for it, ready to face him, ever since they'd parted ways nearly three months earlier and now, with everything, it'd seemed the perfect timing for it.  Harry plopped down on the other side of the booth without so much as a 'how do you do' and felt a bit of vindictive glee when Malfoy's eyes went wide.  
  
"I sold out for them," he said, which was Harry's way of saying Malfoy was right.  He looked up and was surprised to find that Malfoy didn't look pleased as Harry had expected.  He picked at the label on his Firewhisky.  "Ginevra's pregnant."  
  
Malfoy looked spooked for a moment before his face smoothed into neutrality.  "Congratulations, Harry," he said, and it sounded genuine.  "You must be pleased."  
  
"Y-yes.  I am."  Harry hunched his shoulders.  Merlin, he didn't think anything had ever sounded less true.  
  
Malfoy narrowed his eyes at the uncertain response.  "Why are you here?"  
  
Harry swallowed and looked down at the vertical stripe he'd made in the label.  "Because," he said uneasily, "there's this part of me that _isn't_ pleased and it's your fault."  Malfoy gave him an incredulous glare and Harry watched him for a moment before saying weakly, "I knew, the second she said, it was really over for us and I—I don't think I'm ready for it to be over yet."  
  
"It was over a long time ago, Harry."  He offered a pointed look at Harry's wedding ring and for a moment Harry wanted to snatch it off and throw it on the other side of the pub if it meant that Malfoy would smile at him again.  Malfoy stood, throwing a bit of coin down on a water ring.  He touched Harry's shoulder as he made to leave. "She was the choice you made and in her gratitude she's given you a child.  It sounds as if it was the right one to me."  


♕

  
Harry tried to take Malfoy's words to heart, strange as it was that it was Malfoy who'd said them.  Ginny was giving him something precious, something that would always be just _his_ and no other man's, something he wouldn't have if he had kept on with his quasi-relationship with Malfoy.  
  
As her pregnancy wore on and they discovered more of its ins and outs, Harry's doubts thankfully became a lot quieter.  He and Ginny were closer than they'd been in ages and, though it took some adjustments on his part to get used to her sudden and constant presence, he found he not only didn't mind but that he had begun to enjoy living with her.  
  
It was three weeks before the due date that Ginny grabbed his hand, her face sweaty and puffed up.  "Harry, something's," she groaned and pressed a hand to the lower part of her impressive belly, "something's happening.  The baby, I think it's the baby."  She breathed deeply, the way they'd learned months earlier, while Harry jumped to his feet.  That was as far ahead as his brain had planned.  
  
"The bag, Harry, the bag," Ginny whined in pain.  
  
"Right, right," Harry said, frantic, as he snatched up the bag.  
  
"Not your _Quidditch_ bag, you tit!" she shouted in exasperation.  
  
"Right, right," Harry rattled off, pulling the hospital bag out of the closet and hefting it over his shoulder as he helped Ginny off the bed and down to the Floo.  
  
As he held Ginny's hand in the delivery room, a bleary-eyed Ron and Hermione waiting just outside, and a medi-witch held up his son, James, there was a perverse part of Harry that wished Malfoy was there to see him.  


♕

"Da, grin," James said, pointing gleefully at a sparrow.  
  
Harry smiled and agreed, "Yeah, grin."  He picked James up and put him on his knee.  "Adults sometimes call it a bird though."  James gave him a look of such thorough confusion that Harry immediately backpedaled.  "Which is stupid, isn't it?  Obviously it's a grin."  
  
Ginny rolled her eyes at his side, though he could see she was amused.  "Just like the toaster, the bathtub and his pacifier is a grin."  
  
Harry nodded and put in stoutly, "Only because they are."  
  
"Later, when they ask if our child is slow, I'm laying all the blame on you," she said with a laugh.  
  
Harry and James shared a look before Harry let out a scoff and said, "As if they'll think he's slow?  He's already figured out that our entire system of language is overly complex and that if we only simplified true communication could begin!  He's a shoo-in for the Nobel, don't you think?"  
  
James chose that moment to make a spit bubble and Harry couldn't have been more proud.  
 

♕

  
Harry didn't think about Malfoy much in the next year and a half, fatherhood had a way of pushing everything else to the wayside, so it was a bit of a shock when he ran into him in the rather posh restaurant, _La Rue,_ in Paris while waiting for his liaison with the French Auror department.  
  
"Hi," Harry said in disbelief as he watched Malfoy perusing the menu.  Malfoy looked up at him and froze.  Harry indicated the empty seat across from the blond and Malfoy seemed to consider for a moment before offering him a cool nod.  Harry pulled out the chair and started uneasily, "Fancy seeing you here."  
  
He had to push down a rather deranged part of himself that wanted to leap in and start telling Malfoy all about James, that wanted to watch his eyes light up the way Ginny's would after he'd tell her.  _Get a grip_ , he told himself sternly.  Of course Malfoy wouldn't care, it wasn't like James was _their_ pip.  Harry choked on his own spit and Malfoy gave him an odd look.  
  
"Fancy indeed," he said after a beat and in a tone of complete civility.  He reached for his wine glass and indicated their surroundings.  "I wouldn't have expected this to be to your tastes."  
  
Harry noticed that only the one glass was full, was Malfoy eating alone?  He snorted in response to the question.  "Hardly," he admitted.  "It's a work engagement."  
  
"Ah," Malfoy said understandingly, "I see."  
  
Harry drummed his fingers on the tabletop, feeling unaccountably nervous, as though this were some date he and Malfoy were on.  But they had never had anything like this, not even when things had been at their best.  He cleared his throat.  "You?"  
  
Malfoy smoothed his hand over the napkin on his lap and answered primly, "I've a date actually."  
  
The pain of that one simple phrase was both unexpected and crippling.  He wished it wouldn't be considered rude to snatch up Malfoy's water glass and drain it, or more that he didn't care that it was rude.  He tried to smile but cringed halfway through.  "Must be a first then," he tried in a tone of forced nonchalance, "if he's gone this far to impress you."  
  
Malfoy pursed his lips and glanced towards the door.  "An anniversary as it happens," he said finally.  
  
Harry was having trouble breathing and something was making his eyes burn.  "I didn't know you were seeing anyone," he choked out.  Stupid French perfumes.  
  
Malfoy nodded curtly.  "Understandably."  He looked at Harry for the first time since he'd sat down and frowned.  "You hardly gab as much as Pansy and we're not exactly drinking mates."  
  
"No, we're not," Harry agreed.  He coughed, feeling flustered and annoyed at the way the room seemed too close.  "But I—I would like it if there were a bit more contact between us.  It doesn't have to be..." he cleared his throat again, "but we were close once."  
  
"We were," Malfoy agreed with a conceding dip of his chin.  
  
Harry grew impatient when Malfoy didn't say any more.  "Well?"  
  
Malfoy made eye contact with him and Harry couldn't look away.  "I believe I've told you once before, Harry.  I have no interest in knowing the man you've become."  He said it simply, easy, as though the words had no impact and nothing in Harry broke because of them.  He looked away and smiled softly before fixing Harry with his gaze once more.  He offered sincerely, "Though I do hope you're well and that you'll excuse me as it seems my date has arrived."  
  
Harry jumped out of his seat and was already a good distance away from the table when he heard an apologetic voice say, "Sweetheart, I'm so sorry I'm late, hospital, you know."  Hating himself, Harry turned to watch as Malfoy rose to meet a sandy-blond man who pressed a familiar kiss to his cheek.  "I had to knee Crockney in the balls to make a break for it," he was saying, "but I'm here and in my best suit," he paused and gave Malfoy a once over before he added, groaning, "yet I still pale in comparison, don't I?"  
  
Harry heard Malfoy's warm laughter and he knew he had to leave while he still could.  


♕

  
It wasn't long before Harry saw Malfoy again, well, _made sure_ he saw Malfoy again.  He lived in a posh walk-up, which wasn't much of a surprise, but the fact that he seemed to be moving out of it was.  Harry was glad he hadn't waited any longer to use the address he'd gleaned from the Auror files on the Malfoys.  It'd been burning a hole in the pocket of each pair of robes he wore since he'd pilfered it from the archives after the meeting he'd had with Malfoy outside Obscurus Books.  
  
Harry walked up the stoop and offered Malfoy a goofy wave and a bright, "Hullo."  Which were both things that sounded quite a bit more suave in his head.  
  
Malfoy turned and, recognizing Harry, seemed amused.  "This isn't another coincidence, is it?" he said in a knowing tone.  
  
"No," Harry agreed.  
  
Malfoy perked a brow as he hefted the box he was carrying marked 'Misc' higher up on his knee so he could get his key into his mailbox.  "May I ask why you're here?" he said evenly.  
  
Harry didn't answer for a moment, distracted as he was.  He never would have guessed that Malfoy could have anything labeled 'miscellaneous'.  He was one of those people that practically screamed "a place for everything and everything in its place."  Which was one of the reasons he'd always thought Malfoy was so fond of Umbridge.  He idly wondered if this was Malfoy's bloke's doing, that maybe somehow he'd mellowed him somewhat.  
  
Harry looked up to find Malfoy had paused and was still waiting for his response.  
  
Harry didn't really have an answer and so he just came out with what had dragged him here.  "Ginny, she's—we're having another baby."  
  
Malfoy's amusement lingered and he tutted as he shifted the box again.  "All these congratulations you're wringing out of me, it seems a bit tedious, don't you think?  Maybe I could write it on a post-it and you could carry it with you in your wallet so you could always know my sentiments on the subject."  
  
Harry frowned and admitted, "I miss you."  He took a step closer to Malfoy and swallowed.  "Don't you miss me at all?"  
  
Malfoy blinked prettily.  "I don't know you."  
  
Harry was getting a bit tired of that response, not that he'd ever been particularly fond of it, and growled, "Yes, you bloody well do.  Harry Potter doesn't ring a bell then?" he jeered angrily.  
  
Malfoy looked as if he were actually considering it.  "Not much of one, no," he said after a moment.  "A hero, the wizarding world's golden boy, isn't he?"  He hefted the box up under his arm with a thoughtful expression.  "I knew a Harry once," he sighed nostalgically while he finally retrieved his mail.   Malfoy smiled and looked up at him.  "He was always so nervous and sweaty and before he kissed me, _every time_ before he kissed me, he'd swallow like he couldn't believe he was doing it and I'd watch the knot in his throat nod as he leaned in.  I reveled in that one tiny approval."  It took all of Harry's self-control to keep from pressing Malfoy up against the railing and showing him that bob in his throat again.  Malfoy sighed and dumped a handful of envelopes into the box under his arm.  "He passed away some time ago though.  I mourned him, of course, but I've moved on."  
  
He walked past Harry and it took Harry until he was at the bottom of the stoop to spring into action.  He grabbed Malfoy by the arm and turned him around desperately.  "I shouldn't have left it like that between us, Draco.  You know I know that, don't you, you know how sorry I am?"  
  
Malfoy didn't look at him, just told him informatively, "I've a meeting to make."  
  
He started to pull away when Harry grabbed him close and asked, his throat tight, "Are you moving in with him?"  
  
"I am," was all Malfoy said.  
  
"Congratulations," Harry managed bitterly.  


♕

Harry was watching Albus and James the afternoon that Albus saw a duck for the first time.  An unexpectedly traumatizing experience, Harry later learned.  Albus was splashing in the creek under Harry's watchful eye while James ran around him obnoxiously and occasionally tried to push him into the mud.  
  
He hadn't known sibling rivalry started in so early.  He had told Ginny about James' increasing nastiness and she had responded, half-asleep through the Floo, that boys would be boys and there was no getting around that.  Harry supposed that was true but it didn't mean he wanted his children to be poking each other with sticks or putting slugs in one another's bed at the first opportunity.  
  
"Dad," James called, demanding attention as he so often did.  
  
Harry put out his thumb and pinky finger and held his hand up to his ear.  "You rang, Jamie?" he replied studiously.  
  
James giggled, it was his favorite way for Harry to respond and had been since he'd seen his first working telephone while spending the day with his grandfather.  James held up his own pantomime of a phone and whispered with his hand cupped around his pinky as though it were a real receiver, "Will you tell Al that you love me more than him because I was here longer?"  
  
Albus looked up at that, his chin already wobbling.  Harry sighed.  "James, you know I love both my children equally."  
  
"But not as much, right!" James insisted.  
  
"Just as much," Harry told him with forced patience.  This was one of his least favorite ways in which James acted out.  
  
James stomped across the creek, making sure to splash Albus in his vehemence, and started tearing out reeds and throwing them about.  Harry was just standing to make him stop when one of the handfuls of reeds landed on the opposite side of the water and scared out a family of ducks.  They were a bit uncoordinated as they scattered and one of them quacked at Albus and flapped its wings a bit too close to him.  
  
Harry had never seen Al run as fast as he did when he ran up that bank and cowered behind Harry's legs while James crowed, "They're just ducks, stupid.  Just ducks!  Quack, quack, quack."  
  
James held his arms out and ran around in a circle while Harry wished he had some help.  


♕

  
Harry didn't know why he'd sent it, all he knew was that the first person he'd wanted to tell, wanted to commiserate with him, was Malfoy and he wrote the letter before he'd even thought of Ron and Hermione.  
  
It was simple, harmless.  


_I'll take that post-it now.  We're going to name her Lily._

_I hope you're well and that he's treating you all right.  Maybe we can get together sometime to talk.  I'll not hold my breath though, yeah?_

  
Malfoy never did answer.  


♕

 

"Lils, Lils, Lils," Harry cooed as he patted her back and bounced her but still she cried on and on.  "Lils, Lils, Lils," Harry tried again and the wailing trickled into heavy sniffling.  "At least we know you like your name, yeah?" he said as he looked down into her chubby face and all he could think was, _This isn't working_.

 ♕  


  
Harry was nearly shocked dumb when he ran into Malfoy, literally, while walking into Flourish & Blotts almost two years later.  Malfoy's arms were full with a paper bag that looked to be bursting with books, quills and ink.  The handles already looked a bit weary which explained why Malfoy was carrying it like a child.  
  
He seemed just as surprised but he recovered himself first, moving out of the way of the entrance as he said, "Congratulations, I did mean to say it."  
  
Harry shrugged, feeling unbelievably uncomfortable.  "We're not mates," he reminded him awkwardly.  "You don't have to."  
  
Malfoy smirked good-naturedly.  "Occasionally acquaintances can manage a nicety or two.  I do keep seeing you about."  
  
Harry rubbed the back of his neck.  "You've done up four now."  
  
"I'm a particularly civil acquaintance," Malfoy said with a sniff and Harry grinned at his exaggerated haughtiness.  Malfoy gave him a soft look before he turned serious and admitted, "Besides, the first wasn't for you.  I was hardly going to congratulate you for murdering someone I cared so deeply for."  
  
Harry's shoulders hunched.  "All that's gone now though, isn't it?"  He laughed humorlessly and looked away.  
  
"Had to let it go, didn't I?" Malfoy said and it almost sounded like he was daring Harry to challenge it.  
  
But Harry was too tired to fight anymore and only shrugged.  "I suppose."  
  
"I'm happy, Harry," Malfoy said softly.  He pinned Harry with a questioning look and added, "and sometimes you seem it too, yeah?  I've seen pictures in the _Prophet_ of you with your children."  He smiled warmly.  "They're growing up beautiful."  Harry felt a flash of pride at the compliment and Malfoy gave him a look that reminded Harry of all the past they shared.  He eyed him sadly.  "We've made lives for ourselves somewhere along the way and maybe it wasn't what either of us wanted but it doesn't seem as if we've cocked it up too badly."  
  
Harry gave a breathless chuckle.  "You haven't," he corrected.  "I, on the other hand, sleep with my wife and think of you."  Malfoy looked stunned but Harry didn't care.  It was the first bit of honesty he'd ever really managed with Malfoy in a relationship that used to be defined by it.  It still wasn't all there because Harry couldn't bring himself to admit, even to himself, that it wasn't just his bed where he imagined Ginny with a different face.  
  
Malfoy looked uncomfortable but he gamely offered, "You have something you'd always wanted, something I never could have given you."  
  
Harry waited until he held Malfoy's gaze.  He wanted the blond to understand this if he never did anything else.  "Family doesn't have to mean offspring, Draco.  I was just too thick to see what a perfect one we could have made."  
  
There was almost a look of relief in Malfoy's eyes as Harry said it and Harry realized that this wasn't news to him.  "I am sorry, Harry," he said seriously.  "I always wanted you happy.  Always."  And when he said it, Harry believed it.  
  
He sighed and gave Malfoy a weak grin.  "There's not much for it, is there?  The only reason I'm not lies at my own doorstep."  
  
Malfoy had the decency not to agree and only half-smiled at him with a meek, "Goodbye, Harry."  


♕

  
Ron and Hermione's was just as loud and full of sprogs as Harry's during winter hols but at least there were always friendly faces.  Hermione foisted the kids off on Ron and pulled Harry out onto the porch after dinner.  She stared out at her backyard with a careful gaze before saying suddenly, "You don't seem happy, Harry."  
  
The answer was right there, so practiced and easy that he didn't even have to think of it anymore.  How many times had it been now?  It was on the tip of his tongue to say, _It's just the boys are gone off to school and Lily's on next and..._ but what came out instead was, "I'm not."  
  
Hermione said, affronted, after the pause had carried on long enough, "You think after all you've been through that I'll just leave it at that?" She turned around and glared at him, adding, "It's almost insulting, Harry."  Harry smiled at her weakly as she brushed his cheek with a sudden frown.  "You know I'd give my happiness away if it meant you could have it, don't you?" she whispered quietly and Harry felt himself close to tears.  
  
He shook himself and croaked, "There's nothing for it now, Hermione.  I made my choice."  
  
"And that's it, is it?" she demanded and he noticed she sounded a bit stuffy as well.  "No one's allowed to change their mind, are they?"  
  
Harry sighed.  "Not this time."  


♕

  
He asked Ginny for a divorce two days later.  It was surprisingly civil and that fact alone made Harry feel ill.  
  
Custody was the only real issue but they had come to a fair agreement without much prodding.  If there was one thing that had never changed between them, it was that they both believed the other was a genuinely good parent.  


♕

  
Harry had just turned in his resignation to Dweylin when he stepped onto the Ministry elevator to find Malfoy standing in it.  The man blinked, cleared his throat and asserted, "I heard about your divorce.  I'm sorry, Harry."  
  
"Are you really?" Harry asked shrewdly.  
  
Malfoy nodded.  "I am.  The dissolution of a marriage is never pretty and I find it's not something anyone goes in hoping for."  
  
Harry was barely listening, his skin felt charged with something and he found himself rocking forward onto his toes and saying, "Are you still with your bloke?"  
  
Malfoy took the abrupt change of subject in stride and only said a bit stiffly, "I am."  
  
Harry licked his lips nervously.  "I—I don't think that Harry lad of yours is as dead as you thought."  He watched Malfoy's face and conceded, "Comatose, maybe, but I hear he's coming around."  
  
Malfoy's features hardened.  "I don't muck about with ghosts, Potter.  Too much illusion in it."  The lift doors opened and Malfoy hesitated a moment before leaving and said, "I hope your children are well."  


♕

  
Harry was standing outside in the cold, the snow biting up his pant legs and his fingers turning blue when Malfoy finally came to the door.  "Harry," he greeted bitingly and Harry knew he wasn't welcome here, that this wasn't a night for him, but he couldn't get that stupid announcement out of his head.  
  
"Don't marry him."  And he didn't care how pitiful or desperate he sounded as long as Malfoy just promised he wouldn't.  
  
Malfoy folded his arms over his chest and sneered.  God, it had been years since Harry had seen that.  "You've quite a bit of nerve."  
  
"I know," Harry babbled, "it's just... that bloke you fell in love with all those years ago is standing right in front of you and, I know it's been," Harry snorted and ran a cold hand through his spiky hair, "it's been a _long_ time and you may not recognize him so well but—but I'm not dead, Draco, and I want you."  
  
Malfoy narrowed his eyes and walked up to Harry with such fierceness in his gaze that Harry actually fell back a step.  He swallowed when Malfoy finally met him in the snow and pressed his palms to Harry's chest.  And then Malfoy kissed him.  
  
Harry gasped in surprise and felt Malfoy's tongue meet his.  The warmth of his mouth immediately chased away the chill and Harry tore his hands out of his pockets and threw his arms around Malfoy's neck.  He sucked in the taste of him as he pulled at the blond's tongue with his own and licked at all the contours of his mouth.  Malfoy's hand dipped down and Harry felt his stomach shiver in meeting, it was a thrilling, half-sick feeling and Harry was so afraid.  
  
He was too afraid to stop and terrified of continuing.  If he stopped and lost this, but if he kept on and allowed himself to get pulled in deeper... it was too much and not enough and Harry didn't know how long they stood there, kissing, breathing in one another, before Malfoy pulled away.  
  
There were tears in Harry's eyes from how cold he was.  "I love you."  It was hoarse and weak but Malfoy's eyes still twinkled.  
  
He stepped away and tilted his head to the side, saying warmly, "Your throat still bobs.  I'd missed that."  
  
Harry caught Malfoy's hand in his.  "Come home with me," he croaked.  
  
Malfoy's brow furrowed and he took another step back, though there was such distance in his gaze that it may well have been a gulf he'd placed between them.  "You misunderstand me, Harry.  I've told you," he explained softly, "I've no intention of playing about with ghosts."  
  
Harry felt lost and weak.  "But it's not—"  
  
Malfoy's gaze was warm.  "My Harry wouldn't have kissed her, wouldn't have slipped that ring on her finger, and he wouldn't have stood by and watched anyone else wearing his face do it either.  Understand, the only way it made sense, or rather the only way I could come to terms with it, was to believe that he was gone."  His features went hard and he said, willing Harry to understand, "Otherwise, if he could invite me to watch him bond himself to the woman he left me for, the woman he fooled about with while we were together, then it meant I had never really known him at all and it would have irrevocably cheapened our time together."  
  
Harry paused, his mouth still open to retort.  He hadn't known Malfoy had ever found out about the few times he had been with Ginny while they were still together and, from the look on Malfoy's face, Malfoy knew it too.  
  
His mouth tightened and he looked away.  "Some things are better left dead."  
  
Harry swiped at his eyes and demanded bitterly, "This is it then?  You're done with me?"  But some part of Harry understood what Malfoy was trying to say, that he'd been done with Harry the moment he'd said I do.  That even if he had run out only a moment after the ceremony, taken Malfoy in his arms and told him it would always be him, he would have been one moment too late.  Malfoy had lost all respect, all affection, for him in that moment and Harry found himself thinking he would do anything to go back and change that.  
  
Malfoy's voice was raw and Harry hated himself for making it sound that way.  "I loved you so much and I think in the back of my mind I thought, if only he'd come back I'd run away with him," he laughed a bit madly, "but it isn't real, is it?  I can't surrender myself to a man I can't trust with the sacrifice."  He looked back at the door behind him and said tightly, "He makes me feel safe and I don't have to worry that he'll run off or be ashamed of me or try to make me into something I'm not or, worse, try to be something _he's_ not."  He turned back to Harry and told him in all honesty, "I really do love him and I owe you that.  Because of you, I knew what I wanted and what I didn't and that's how I found him.  You gave me that, you gave me him."  
  
Harry watched, feeling broken and so, so alone, as Malfoy walked up the steps and wrenched open the door to stand in its mouth.  Harry opened his own desperately but Malfoy was there before him.  
  
He turned around stiffly and, after a blank moment, announced quietly, "I'm going to get married tomorrow and I won't offer for you to come and I won't make you say congratulations."  
  
Malfoy narrowed his eyes and said coldly, "Consider that more than you ever gave me."


End file.
